


forget the chorus, you're the bridge

by thismagichour



Series: Bad Things Happen, but It'll Turn Out Okay [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, doesn't realize they've been injured
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 06:32:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16571453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thismagichour/pseuds/thismagichour
Summary: Ah, Vox Machina, getting themselves further into trouble than they meant to. Pike gets the worst of it.





	forget the chorus, you're the bridge

Everything is so cold here. Pike’s normally overheated, because full plate armor is incredibly hot, but right now she can feel the clammy sweat on her skin. She doesn’t like it very much, honestly. She also doesn’t like that every part of her body is aching, and that her chest is throbbing from a blow she took from one of the frost giants, but she doesn’t really have time for that at the moment. She’s having enough trouble drawing breath in this place, because it’s so damn cold.

“Pike!” Vex calls to her, and Pike turns to see Percy fall, not ten feet away from her. Percy shouldn’t have been so close, what was he doing, anyway? Her ears are ringing, but she’s not sure why. As she rushes to Percy, dropping to her knees to heal him, she gives the rest of Vox Machina a scan. Keyleth and Grog are fine, of course they are, Scanlan is looking a little hurt, but he can take care of himself. Vex is bleeding, but even as Pike watches, Vex patches herself up. Tary doesn’t even have a scratch on him. Good for him. And that’s good too, because Pike is nearly completely tapped on spells. Pike loses a moment looking for Vax, before she remembers. Right. She turns her focus on Percy, who shudders awake. Percy blinks up at her, before smiling softly. Her heart thuds painfully in her chest, though she doesn’t know why. She hasn’t felt that way about Percy in years. As Pike gets back to her feet, her foot slips out from under her on the ice and she nearly falls.

“Careful, Pike,” Percy says, grabbing her hand as he sits up. She doesn’t respond to him because her mouth is overly filled with saliva, and it’s kind of gross, so she just smiles at him and moves back. He gives her a concerned look, but immediately turns to check on Vex, who is steadily moving towards him. She leaves them be, and looks to Scanlan, who is still looking a little worse for wear. She murmurs _feel better,_ giving him what she can, it’s nothing, it’s a low level spell but it’s all she has and immediately sees him perk up. That’s good. 

Actually, there seems to be only one frost giant left (there were so many frost giants, how did there get to be so many frost giants?), and Grog and Keyleth seem to have that under control, so Pike just backs up a little. She’s not gonna be much help anyway, without any spells, and her chest aching so badly. In fact, it’s probably fine if she just…sits. She does that, thumping hard on her ass onto the ice, sending sparks of pain up her whole body. She swallows hard, and realizes that she must have bit her tongue when she sat, or when she got hit last, because she’s tasting a lot of blood. She’s just so tired. Maybe she’ll just lie down, for a minute, because Vox Machina has it under control.

 

_Wake up, Pickle._

 

Scanlan is singing in the kitchen. She grins, because no matter how many days she wakes up married to him, she’s so happy he’s there. Normally she can hear plates clanging or Grog talking or even just food sizzling, but all she can hear is Scanlan this morning. That’s nice too. Maybe Grog isn’t awake yet.

“Scanlan,” she says without opening her eyes, because she’s still so tired and she wipes her mouth before he can make fun of her for drooling, “come back to bed.” The singing stops entirely. He takes her hand in his and he’s burning up. Maybe he’s coming down with something. That’s fine, because if there’s one perk of being married to a cleric, it’s that you’re never sick for long.

“You’re so hot, Scanlan,” she says, still not opening her eyes, because opening her eyes means that she’s awake, and she doesn’t want to be awake yet.

“I get that a lot,” Scanlan says, and his voice sounds wrong. She tries to turn towards the sound of his voice, but her chest hurts. Maybe _she’s_ coming down with something. She coughs, and more drool comes out of her mouth, and she knows Scanlan’s gonna laugh at her for looking so pathetic, but that’s okay.

“Ow,” she says, pouting, lifting her chin up for a kiss, which Scanlan immediately provides. She realizes then that it isn’t him that’s burning up, she’s freezing, actually, did Grog leave all the doors open again?

“That about sums it up, I should think,” Percy says, dryly. Wait. That isn’t right. She opens her eyes, and sees Scanlan, mouth covered in blood, hovering over her. She lifts one hand up to his mouth and wow, her arms are heavy. Scanlan takes her hand in his, kisses her palm, whispers against it _feel better_ , and she realizes as the spell hits her that she’s lying on the ice in a frost giant lair. Her head is actually cradled in Vex’s lap, who is pouring some spells into her now, and the ache in her chest eases.

“I fell,” she says, and turns to spits a ton of blood onto the ice next to her.

“Your armor got all dented,” Grog says mournfully, and she looks over to see him holding a small crushed breastplate in his large hands. There’s not really any space between the front of the plate and the back anymore.

“That’s okay, Grog, we can fix it,” Pike says.

“Grog, don’t worry about her armor, Pike just got her chest crushed in,” Vex chides.

“Yeah, but she’s fine now,” Grog says, “she took it like a monstah.”

“Yes, she did, but let’s get her out of here, maybe?” Keyleth chimes in. “I don’t want to fight another horde of giants if any are still around.”

“Giants tend to be solitary creatures,” Percy says, for the fifth time today, “this isn’t typical by any means.”

“If only someone had told them that,” Scanlan says, “that would have solved all our problems.”

“Come on, Pikey,” Grog says, and scoops her up.

“I’m fine, you guys, I can walk,” Pike protests, and quickly pipes down at all the stern looks that earns her.

“You can ride on my shoulders,” Grog offers, and sets her there like they’ve done a million times.

“Well, folks, it’s been a really fun vacation, with my wife nearly dying and everything, but I think we’re gonna go home now,” Scanlan says. Grog scoops him up too.

“It really should have been easy,” Percy says, and Vex puts her arms around him.

“I know, dear,” she murmurs to him.

“It was supposed to be fun,” he says, sullenly.

“I know, dear.”

“Well, I had fun,” Tary says, “and it’s a great epilogue for my book. A meet-up with Vox Machina, ten years after the conquering of the evil demi-god Vecna! We go in to the monsters’ lair on a lark, to rid the world of two frost giants, and conquer twelve instead! An epic battle between our heroes and -”

“Thanks, Tary,” Keyleth says.

“And I’ll make you sound doubly heroic, Pike,” Tary says.

“Thank you, Tary," Pike says.

**Author's Note:**

> What's this, a fic with Scanlan AND Tary? Well, yes, Tary is a member of Vox Machina and also my favorite character to have ever walked this earth, so I don't even know if I'm capable of writing a VM fic without him in it. Anyway. This is the second of my Bad Things Happen Bingo series, with many more to come. Prompt me @calebwidogasts on tumblr if there's something you want to see!


End file.
